A message from World Stroke Organisation President, Prof. Werner Hacke
As you may have
read, last week a new initiative was launched named the Foundation for a Smoke Free World. This foundation – whose leadership
includes former WHO official Dr Derek Yach – is a tobacco-industry-funded
initiative, set to receive $80 million of annual funding over the next 12 years
from tobacco business Philip Morris International (PMI).
Alongside our
colleagues at the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the World Heart
Federation, the World Stroke Organization condemns this initiative in the strongest
possible terms as an attempt by the tobacco industry to interfere in, and
subvert, public policy.
Despite funding a
foundation that claims its goal is to ‘eliminate smoking’, PMI continues to
invest billions of dollars in marketing cigarettes worldwide, focusing many of
these efforts in low- and middle-income countries where stroke, alongside other
diseases related to tobacco use pose a growing individual and health system
burden.
Throughout
previous decades, the tobacco industry – including PMI – has sought to maintain
its profits by sowing misinformation among the public and blocking policies
designed to protect public health. PMI’s recent failed attempt to sue the
government of Uruguay for implementing anti-smoking legislation is just one
recent example of these efforts.
Tobacco use is
associated with around 1 in every 10 strokes and according to current WHO
projections, tobacco use will kill a total of one billion people this century. As the leading global organization that
brings together the stroke community to create a world free from stroke, the World
Stroke Organization is committed to support all legitimate efforts to achieve a
smoke-free world.
The best path to
tackle this epidemic and achieve a smoke-free world is by implementing policies
set out in the WHO FCTC – not by engaging with an industry that has shown
repeatedly that it cannot be trusted to defend, let alone promote, public
health.
